Concrete Cow 12.5 games

The following games were offered at the Concrete Cow 12½ convention on 8 September 2012. If you have something you'd like to offer, please email concrete-cow-owner@yahoogroups.com. See the Concrete Cow 12 games page for what was on offer at the previous Concrete Cow.

The Bit.ly link for this page is http://bit.ly/eiw4wQ.

Game Slots

To keep some sense of organisation about the day (ha!), this is the approximate timetable for the day.

Doors open	9.00am
Morning games	10.00am - 1.30pm
Afternoon games	2.30pm - 6.30pm
Evening games	7.30pm - 11.00pm
Close	11.00pm

Allocating games to players is by sign-up sheets on the day, on a first-come-first-served basis. You can download blank sign-up sheets as sign-up sheet (MS Word) or sign-up sheet (PDF).

Note that, depending on circumstances, not all of these games may run on the day.

Send us your game blurbs at concrete-cow-owner@yahoogroups.com and we'll put them here!

(Please add games in alphabetical order)

Call of Cthulhu 7ed

Blackwater Creek

A 1920s bootlegger scenario.

GM: Paul Fricker

Slot: Afternoon

Rubberband Girl

You see I try to resist

If I could learn to twang

Like a rubberband

I'd be a rubberband girl

A modern day game of horror players with a mature outlook.

GM: Mike Mason

Players: Up to 5

The Space Between

The Church of Sunyata has grown to a position of power in Hollywood. Its members include stars, producers, movers and shakers, and its celebrity centre in the Hollywood Hills is home to the most important parties in town.

Still, the church is having trouble shaking off its image as a cult. Their latest project -- a self-financed blockbuster based on church teachings -- will help open the eyes of the public. The production is in trouble, though -- the leading lady has gone missing, the police are sniffing around and everyone on set is growing more nervous and secretive.

The future of the project is in the hands of a few dedicated church members. Will they be able to ensure that their vision is shared with the world?

GM: Scott Dorward

Players: 4 (Adults only)

Slot: Morning

Dead of Night

A fast-play, stripped-down variant of the game of make-your-own horror movies. Completely improvised! So deadly, every player will have at least three PCs!

This is an incredibly fast, ultra-light hack of the game: starting from no characters and no plot, we can create and play through a horror movie in around 90 minutes. As such, this is more likely to be a game on demand provided for players who arrive in the afternoon with the other games on offer already filled and/or begun.

GM: James Mullen

Players: 3-5

Discworld (new edition preview)

Mrs. Nomed's Respectable Lodging-House

Mrs. Eulice Nomed runs a respectable lodging house in Ankh-Morpork, which is the best place that you can find to live while you make your fortune in the city. There are, no doubt, worse landladies, so you don't object too much to Mrs. Nomed's funny little rules.

Anyway, when what's in the cellar bursts forth upon the unknowing mortal world, frankly, paying your rent a month in advance and wiping your feet when you come through the door will be the least of your worries.

GM: Phil Masters

Players: 3-5

Slot: Afternoon

Durance

A sneak preview of Jason Morningstar's forthcoming game.

Durance is a game about a remote planet orbiting a distant star where the worst criminal scum from a dozen star systems have been dumped, charged with building new lives under the watchful eye of Authority. Within a brutal hierarchy of savagery and servility, convicts and guards alike must make hard choices. Only the shrewdest, the toughest and the luckiest will get a chance to find out. Will you be among them?

GM: Piers Newman

Players: 2-4

Fiasco

Fiasco is inspired by cinematic tales of small time capers gone disastrously wrong – inspired by films like Blood Simple, Fargo, The Way of the Gun, Burn After Reading, and A Simple Plan. You’ll play ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control and in the end it will probably all go south in a glorious heap of jealousy, murder, and recrimination. It's an award-winning, GM-less game designed to be played in a few hours with six-sided dice and no preparation. During a game you will engineer and play out stupid, disastrous situations, usually at the intersection of greed, fear, and lust.

Fiasco LIVE!

In Fiasco LIVE! we'll put the emerging clusterfrag on its feet! We'll keep the game at the core, but with a bit of larp, a bit of improv and few props, we'll breathe life into the pivotal moments by acting them out. So ideal players should be willing to throw themselves, literally, into their characters.

Fiasco is optimised for 4 players. If we get a fifth or sixth, they'll get to play every other unfortunate who gets dragged into the chaos.

Author: Jason Morningstar

Un-GM: Epistolary Richard

Players: 3-6

Slot: Afternoon

GURPS

Seas of Dread

"Such a day, Rum all out. Our Company somewhat sober."

1674 has not been the best of times for a buccaneer, and the crew of Neptune's Sabre is growing restive. Henry Morgan himself has hung up his pistols and now hunts pirates for the King; voodoo priests are sending zombies to cause trouble for honest slavers; the Spaniards are hiding their treasure on shore rather than sending it out to be taken by pirates; and just who - or what - is Davy Jones?

GM: Roger Burton-West

Players: 5

Slot: Morning

Heaven & Earth

Justified Means

Small town people always pull together in times of trouble. The same is true in Potter's Lake. When out-of-towners gun down one of the Police Department's finest in a bust gone wrong, the Sheriff is out for blood. Unfortunately, for the mob on the run, the Sheriff is the least of their issues. Backed into a corner, the guests of a small boarding house are about to find themselves between a rock and a very hard place indeed.

A very player-driven scenario for 6 players.

GM: Matt Sanderson

Number of players: 6 (adults only)

Slot: Morning

Hot War

The Sea, Our Mother

It is 1972, and six years have passed since the Summer of Love. The peace and love generation is descending into hard drugs, political violence and selfish hedonism. It is the end of an age.

One small group, calling itself The Water of Life, has shunned the rest of the world, and has created a small commune on the coast of Massachusetts. It is devoted to spiritual enlightenment, worship of the life-giving sea, and restoring the lost wisdom of the native people of Innsmouth.

Rolling Stone magazine have sent their best reporter to tell the story of this last embodiment of the spirit of a generation. Wisdom and truth await.

Please note that this uses a Cthulhu Mythos setting, not the standard Hot War background.

GM: Scott Dorward

Players: 4 (Adults only)

Slot: Evening

In the Spotlight

A GM-less hack of Jared Sorensen's excellent InSpectres, each ItS game takes a TV series with a central character and allows you to play them. Yes, everybody gets to play the central character but each player also gets one of the regular supporting characters as their own PC: the more trouble the PCs get into, the more the central character gets to do to get them out of it! Previously used to play Doctor Who, House and Blackadder, this time I'd like to have a go at Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

Un-GM: James Mullen

Players: 3-5

Slot: Morning

Jaws of the Six Serpents

Winter's Teeth

The blizzard howls outside the keep in the hills, growing fiercer with every passing hour. One of the guards swore that he saw something misshapen moving in the snow. Moments later he was snatched away and only blood and meat remains.

A group of refugees from the storm, thrown together by circumstance, shelter from the horrors that stalk the blizzard. Each of them has secrets, but their only chance of survival lies in trust. Will they live to see the dawn?

Dark sword-and-sorcery action, filled with intrigue, betrayal and bloody horror.

GM: Scott Dorward

Players: 5 (Adults only)

Slot: Afternoon

Marvel Heroic RPG

Ninjas on a plane

It’s a simple job, you’ve been hired by Nick Fury to escort a dignitary from Europe to New York and ensure he locks his briefcase in a secure vault in New York’s grand central bank. Nothing could possibly go wrong. What? Oh the title, yeah it does give it away a little. ;-)

GM: James Hollywood

Players: 3-6

Slot: Morning

Montsegur 1244

A story game about burning for your belief.

Do you renounce your heretic beliefs and do you wish to receive the forgiveness of the merciful Father?

In March 1244 this question was posed to several hundred Cathars. They had surrendered to the army that had besieged the castle of Montsegur for more than nine months. More than two hundred answered no, and thereby chose death by fire. Who were these people that chose to die for their belief?

In Montsegur 1244 the players collaborate to create a story about who these people were. Each player takes on the role of one of the besieged Cathars who will face the choice between life and faith.

A game for 3-6 players. Duration 3-6 hours.

Author: Frederick J Jensen

GM: Neil Smith

Players: 3-6

Monsterhearts

Based on the Apocalypse World engine, this is a a story game about the messy lives of teenage monsters. Monsterhearts lets you and your friends create stories about sexy monsters, teenage angst, personal horror, and secret love triangles. When you play, you explore the terror and confusion that comes both with growing up and feeling like a monster.

The Big Game

This game will play as a standard game of Monsterhearts, but will include Joe Mcdaldo's sport event mini-game rules for playing 'The Big Game'.

Author: Joe Mcdaldno

GM: Epistolary Richard

Players: 3-6

Slot: Morning

Penny Adventures: Zombies!

A group of survivors, holed up in a city filled with the walking dead, have found a way out. The only way out.

Penny Adventures is an easy-to-grasp system which puts Player Character's actions and choices at the centre of the story. The game explores the relationships between people struggling together to survive, and makes it easy for the Players to really effect the narrative.

The game will be run by it's author, improviser and comedian Edward Croft, as it steps out for its first convention play! Looking for feedback before the game goes to production.

GM: Edward Croft

Players: 3-4

A Penny for My Thoughts

Have you lost your memory? The Orphic Institute for Advanced Studies can help, with its revolutionary Mnemosyne™ treatment process. With the help of others in your therapy group, explore your past and face whatever traumas have led you to this state, ultimately answering the question: do you want to remember?

Un-GM: James Mullen

Players: 2-4

Slot: Evening

Ribbon Drive

Tags: Story telling, GMless, no conflict resolution, small scale stories about normal people, may contain adult themes, needs full player buy in.

Ribbon Drive excels at tight, gritty, testing social interaction between the characters in play. It is about creating a road trip where all of the meat is in the interaction between the characters and not so much about the outside world. This will not be an action adventure chase movie. The game is GMless with full shared narration and needs involved players who want to really explore the relationships between the characters in the car, during the game players will explore the possible future dreams of their characters and decide if they will ever be resolved.

The game is based around the mix tapes/CD's/playlists that you build for long road trips. Feel free to bring your own CD if you've made one (must be a normal CD I'm afraid, I won't have the technology to play playlists on MP3 players or MP3 CD's) but don't feel you have to, I will have plenty of premixed CDs with me.

If you want to make a CD, the suggested mix CD length is 40-80 minutes (i.e. at least 40 minutes and as much as you can fit on a 'normal' CD rather than an MP3 filled one.) From experience that's going to be between 16 and 21 songs. The CD should run with some sort of theme. i.e. Happy Relationships, Suicidal Tendancies, Coming Home, or whatever you fancy rather than just 'here's 20 songs that I like'. The latter could work, but it may make the game run more eclectically than it's intended to. You need to come prepared with a print out of the lyrics for the first two tracks on your CD. That's all the prep you need.

The game will probably fill the whole slot.

Un-GM: Mik Reed

Additional Players: 2-3

Squadron UK

Squadron UK is the British Superhero role-playing game. This is one of the final pre-production play-tests of the totally new 2nd Edition rules.

Consequences

It isn’t big and it isn’t clever. It’s a playtest of the first, example, super-simple Scenario I’m including in the rules for new Referees. You’ll get to create your own Heroes and play through standard, non-taxing, single issue storyline. It’ll be fun though, guaranteed.

GM: Simon Burley (game author)

Players: 3-5

Slot: Morning

Panic on the Streets of London

The emergence of Superheroes has had an unforeseen effect on the criminal underworld. Bullets are no longer good enough, and what’s worse, someone has the means to supply their needs.

Turning up to help the outgunned police deal with a bank robbery can our heroes break the supply chain and keep energy weapons out of the hands of criminals?

GM: James Hollywood

Players: 3-6

Slot: Afternoon

The Tavern

A GMless game about a tavern and the people who work, drink and eat there: each round of play concerns itself with a different part of the tavern's history, which may be days, months or years apart.

Un-GM: Graham Walmsley

Players: 2-4

Slot: Evening

The Vicious Crucible

The Vicious Crucible of Verdigris Valley

The borderlands of the Verdigris Valley have never been peaceful, but now an invasion force gathers at the summit of the Pashuan Way, looking hungrily down on the rich homesteads and crippled fort below. The days to come will throw six men and women into a gauntlet of desperate pressures, crushing obligations, and entangling relationships. Some will fall; some will triumph; some will cave to the pressures; some will bask in the flames like a phoenix. These six stand on the precipice of The Vicious Crucible of Verdigris Valley. The only way out is through, and the only way through requires a painful transformation into something new.

The Vicious Crucible of Verdigris Valley is game for up to six players and a GM. It plays in a pulse-pouding single session of jump cuts and action sequences.

Author: Josh Roby

GM: Neil Smith

Players: 3-6

X-perimentals

(Note, games are not associated with the X-Men, the X Factor or the X-Chromosome)

X-perimentals will consist of three short experimental games. Each game is an experiment with game mechanics that are a little different. Each game should be between 30 mins to an hour and players can step up, stick in or step out as they need.

• Slave - Play as a Roman slave seeking to gain their freedom and avoid being sent to the mines in this Archipelago mod
• The Scream - Experimental roleplay in a world inspired by Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream
• The Michael Scott Improv Game - a bare-bones story-game inspired by Michael Scott's improv class in the US version of the tv show "The Office"

GM: Epistolary Richard

Players: 2+

Slot: Evening